-SIFMA notes parallels to industry guidelines
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) today endorsed the Conference Board’s Task Force on Executive Compensation report, which provides compensation guiding principles to all public companies, and has many similarities to the financial services guidelines SIFMA unveiled in June.
"The Conference Board has delivered an impressive and thoughtful report with well-considered and constructive principles. As a leading financial services trade association, we, too, set forth similar guidelines and urged our member firms towards implementation. On this crucial issue, our guiding principle must be to better align pay, long-term performance and shareholder interests. We thank the Conference Board for their work on this issue," said Ken Bentsen, executive vice president for public policy and advocacy.
The Conference Board’s Guiding Principles state that public companies should:
· Establish a clear link between pay, strategy and performance;
· Provide compensation that is fair, affordable and clearly aligned with actual performance;
· Eliminate controversial compensation practices that conflict with the notions of fairness and pay for performance – such as excessive golden parachutes, overly generous severance arrangements, gross-ups of parachute payments or perquisites, and golden coffins – unless specific justification exists;
· Demonstrate credible board oversight of executive compensation; and
· Foster transparency with respect to compensation practices and appropriate dialogue between boards and shareholders.
In June, SIFMA unveiled its own industry principles for executive compensation, which can be found here:
http://www.sifma.org/legislative/savings/pdf/SIFMA-Comp-Guidelines-06-09.pdf
